


Golden Scarf

by lucidSeraph



Category: Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types, The Protomen
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 15:28:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16621613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucidSeraph/pseuds/lucidSeraph
Summary: Introspective exploration of Protoman's scarf, for some reason.





	Golden Scarf

**Author's Note:**

> Man I don't even remember writing this. But it's not bad so I figure I'll put it up.

He remembers her yellow scarf, pulled over her red hair to keep it back and out of the machines. By the evening when she'd show up at his doorstep it was blackened and soot stained, but much like her, bits of gold like sunlight shone through the grime, and each morning she'd somehow have it perfectly clean. He kept faded memories of red and gold as she'd kiss him and leave.

He remembers, it always smelled somehow of strawberries and fresh cut grass, even under the smell of diesel and grease, and he'd ask her how she did it and she'd just smile and tell him she had to keep some secrets. Then she'd kiss him on the cheek, pick up her handbag and leave.

He remembers pulling it off her scarlet hair, the ends now stained red, holding her and crying. He didn't even notice that he had it clutched in his hands as he leaped out of the window to escape the sirens. For some reason, they didn't take it from him as they threw him in the jail cell. They didn't take it either when they pulled him out and put him on that train. It stayed with him, kept safe next to his heart, as he sent that boy to his death. As he swore, he'd never do that again. A machine this time, something that wouldn't feel like a friend, like a son—and what a fool he was to think that a machine could not be a friend, a son.

He remembers hesitating, but feeling it right to pull the scarf out from his breast pocket. He tied it around the machine's neck, the gold contrasting with the brilliant red. Before he flipped the switch, he whispered: “For you, Emily.” He couldn't bring himself to clean those ends, long dried to stiff brown and ragged with age. In some way, he supposes, she rode with his creation. He'd hoped her spirit could keep him safe. But he should have known: the beasts of war feed only on the meats of war, and any creature sent to fight for those who did not care would serve only to be a martyr. 

For the second time in his life he pulled that scarf away from the remains of a loved one (it only just now hitting him that this was a son, this was a loved one, and for the second time in his life he has sent a friend, a son to his death). For the second time he does not remember bringing it home with him, just as he does not remember beginning construction on a second son.

He put the scarf in the bottom of a dusty box, next to a faded picture under cracked glass. By then, it had become frayed and burnt, the smell of strawberries and grass long gone, the gold barely visible. She'd never told him the trick for getting it clean, for keeping it perfect, to keep that faded smell within. It didn't matter. He took it out of the box anyway, held it up to his face and tried to remember what her smile looked like.

He didn't notice his second son watching him. He didn't notice his second son opening the box, taking out the objects and wondering what they meant. He didn't notice how his son payed attention to the little details in his stories, how the doomed hero wore a golden scarf, how in the end that scarf was burned. And he didn't notice how his son never connected the scarf to the woman in the black and white photograph. 

He did notice when the boy (boy, not machine) took that scarf from the box when he swore to avenge his brother's death, how he wrapped it around his forearm and slammed the door behind him. How when he stole the chants of the loudspeakers he held that scarf as an emblem; how it became a flag of war. And in the end, when he watched one son kill the other, the scarf was left on the ground, lost.

For the third time, he found it in his pocket without remembering when he picked it up.


End file.
